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Welcome to SeeTheAurora.com

Seeing the aurora is a goal for many, but a lot of people don't know how. Many are unaware that the northern lights can even be seen in the lower US. I created this website as a guide for those who want to learn all about the northern lights and how to view and photograph them. It was October 24, 2011 when I saw the aurora borealis for the first time. Despite living beneath the bright light pollution of northern Illinois, I watched in amazement as half the sky was filled with color. Red, purple, and green pillars rose up and exploded across the northern sky, changing by the second. Ever since then I've been hooked. In the years since I've been privileged to see and photograph the northern lights dozens of times from 6 US states and 3 countries. No two displays are alike, they always vary in color, shape, and intensity.

If it's your dream to see the aurora in person, then you can't do better than to visit one of these places. All the locations listed (except for #10), are situated underneath the auroral oval. This means that the aurora may be visible on any clear night, even when solar activity

Climatologists study records of Earth's weather to calculate averages and find trends and patterns.I wanted to do the same with space weather to find out how geomagnetic activity varies by year, month, and day. The British Geological Survey (BGS) has been keeping records of geomagnetic activity since 1932. So I

I recommend reading the What Causes the Aurora post first.
Seeing the aurora is simply a matter of being in the right place at the right time. But how do you know where and when to go? What sort of conditions should you be looking for?
Live Data
The Kp-index is one of the easiest

There are 2 reasons to photograph the aurora. The first is the same reason you'd photograph anything amazing, to preserve the memory and share with others. But the 2nd reason is the northern lights show up much clearer in a picture than they do to the naked eye. This is

Before learning how to see the aurora, first it helps to know where they come from. To understand what causes the aurora first you must know a bit about the sun.
The Sun
The sun hangs in space 150 million kilometers away from Earth. A ball of hot plasma 1.4 million kilometers